


Gently Rise and Softly Call

by isaw_eternity_theothernight



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, College Student Ryan Bergara, Curse Breaking, Damsels in Distress, Except Shane is the Damsel, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fairy Tale Retellings, Ireland, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isaw_eternity_theothernight/pseuds/isaw_eternity_theothernight
Summary: There is a man in the woods.Ryan only ever sees him after dusk, and never far from the overgrown path. Most nights he doesn't see him at all. There are times, though, when the moon is full and the air is still, in which they sit side by side and talk for hours until the horizon lightens and he melts back into the trees.If he were home in California Ryan wouldn't think twice about running into a stranger at midnight, but this is Ireland, a country steeped in myth and magic, and he can't help but wonder if there's more to the tall man than meets the eye. So he does what any responsible student of folklore would do, and he begins to dig into the secrets surrounding the bustling city and the quiet forest beyond.Some secrets, though, are better left buried.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara & Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Gently Rise and Softly Call

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved the story of Tam Lin, and this seemed like a fun way of both reworking the ballad and officially entering the Shyan community. For the record, I don't ship them in real life, and I respect their relationships and significant others. They do give off old married couple vibes, though, so I'm just sort of running with that. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

The first time Ryan sees him, it’s nearing dusk.

He’s almost reached the end of his first month, and somewhere in between his classes, his internship, and his job he realizes that if he has to spend over forty-five minutes walking to and from his hostel and the university, he’s going to go mad.

Ryan is a lot of things. Patient isn’t one of them.

He can’t remember whose idea using a shortcut had been, but he does remember waking up the next morning with a killer hangover and a few cocktail napkins covered in assorted notes from locals, detailing possible routes.

It would be useful, he decides after a hot shower and few cups of coffee, to have a shorter path on the way home. At the very least, it couldn’t hurt to try some of them out. For late nights at the bar, he reasons to friends, although Ryan knows himself well and privately thinks that he’s far more likely to use one after accidentally staying in the university library until it closes for the night.

The first shortcut he chooses to try is either extremely poorly written or he’s just awful at reading maps, because it dead-ends first in a lake, then takes him around a blind corner and nearly off of a cliff. By the time he gets home it’s been almost two hours, and he’s covered in dirt, burrs, and scratches from what feels like every thorn bush in Ireland. He grumpily balls up his map and throws it in the trash, then sulks in the shower until he feels better.

The second one is somehow worse, although in his defense it does start to rain halfway through his walk home, and he is slightly drunk. Either way, after another slippery encounter with a cliff face, he decides to err on the side of caution and avoid that area completely.

Unfortunately, this leaves him with pitifully few choices.

Option three proves to be far less eventful than the previous two, and though it only shaves off about five minutes from his commute, Ryan quickly falls into a routine of walking the lonely country road in the mornings and evenings.

About a week in, what is either a very large dog or a very small bear (but it's most likely a bear) chases him nearly three quarters of the way to the university, and he mournfully crosses another shortcut off the list.

Ryan decides, at this point, to put the whole shortcut idea to rest – or at least on the back burner – and get used to his long, boring, yet blessedly bear-free commute. He shoves the last napkin into the bottom of his backpack and out of his mind and resigns himself to waking up far too early for the next three years of his life.

He’s managed to leave the library before sunset for the first time in a few weeks, although his heavy backpack and the impending walk home weigh down what he might otherwise consider the best part of the day. Trudging down the steps, Ryan passes the outer corner of the university and goes to make his usual turn onto the cobbled road when he stops abruptly.

To his right, the road which takes him through the city. It’s his normal route, tried and true, no cliffs, bears, or thorn bushes. It takes him around the thick woods and reliably deposits him in his hostel forty-five minutes later.

Dead ahead is a well-worn opening into the forest.

Ryan pulls off his bag and spills its contents to the ground, searching through pencil stubs and scraps of paper for the napkin he remembers shoving into one of the pockets. A handful of energy bar wrappers and a few spare pennies later, he’s holding the napkin in one hand and trying to put the rest of his stuff back with the other.

He pushes the last of it back in and resolves to clean his backpack at some point, before turning his attention to the napkin in his hand. It’s smaller than he remembers, and dirtier, and one corner is completely torn away. He can still read most of it, though, at least enough to confirm that the trail in front of him is one end of the crudely drawn map in his hand. The other end of it would have been on the corner that got torn away, but Ryan reasons that he has enough of an idea of where to go that he probably won’t get into too much trouble.

Besides, if he can go through the woods instead of around them, he might be able to cut his normal travel time in half. It’s a theory worth the possibility of getting lost, and based on the sky he still has about half an hour left of light.

He shoulders his bag and sets off down the trail.

The starkness of the barren branches offset with the lush green spring undergrowth could have created an almost unsettling effect, but in the golden evening light the woods practically glow. It’s beautiful, even for a southern California beach boy, and he breathes in the moist, early spring air and feels like he understands for the first time what people mean when they talk about the magic of Ireland.

Ryan follows the path around a wide curve, which takes him directly between a pair of gnarled hawthorn trees. The air in this part of the forest feels… different, somehow, but he can’t decide if the grass really is greener or if he’s just going insane.

Probably insane, he thinks.

Still, though, he can’t shake the feeling that he’s being watched, and the rapidly decreasing daylight isn’t helping his mental state.

Gritting his teeth, he picks up the pace, ignoring the protestations of his back and legs. If there is something in the woods, he would really prefer to avoid encountering it. Logically it’s probably nothing more than a bird or a squirrel or something, but then again, it could also be something bigger. Something that maybe hasn’t eaten dinner yet and is hungry for a Ryan steak.

The animal-which-could-have-been-a-bear incident pops into his mind, unbidden, and he feels his heart beat faster in his chest. There’s another curve ahead, more of a hair pin than the last one, and he sucks in his breath as he speed-walks toward it. It’s rapidly getting dark now, and the last thing Ryan wants is to be stuck in this stupid forest at night with something that wants to eat him.

He clears the bend without getting mauled, which is a win.

Straight ahead, maybe about a quarter mile away, is a hole in the brush through which he can clearly see streetlights. He’s close, he’s so close to the end now, close enough to hear the odd car bumping along the cobbled roads. He only has to make it another five minutes.

The undergrowth loudly rustles next to him, and without a second thought Ryan takes off, sprinting toward the end of the tree tunnel. His bag thumps heavily against his spine, bouncing with every step he takes closer to safety.

He bursts out of the woods like an alien in a Ridley Scott film.

“Ow, fuck,” he mutters, shucking off his backpack and doubling over, clutching his sides. Ryan sucks in one deep breath after another, desperately trying to rationalize the rustling in the woods. It was probably a small animal; he knows that’s the most likely explanation… it just doesn’t feel right.

His heartrate returns to normal after a few minutes, and by that point he’s pretty sure he just imagined the whole thing. The forest is full of stuff that rustles, and it was almost dark, and he was on edge anyway. It was a perfectly normal overreaction.

Ryan gathers his wits and turns back to the path opening, squinting into the gloom beyond.

“Nothing there, Ryan, there’s nothing but a bunch of creepy trees and probably a raccoon.” Something moves at the very end of the tunnel and he cranes his neck to try making it out. The flesh on his arms stands up again. “It’s a bird, or a squirrel, or a deer- “

The spots of moonlight shift under the trees, and in the brief dim light Ryan sees his tormenter.

It’s… a man?

He’s pale amidst the trees, and the two stare at each other silently across the distance until the wind shifts and the clouds re-cover the moon. When the path is bathed in light again a few moments later, the man is gone.

Ryan blinks a few times, willing him to reappear, but the woods stay frustratingly empty. He sighs, too confused and tired to be scared, and makes his way home.

The shortcut ends up shaving nearly twenty minutes off his commute, which is unfortunate because he doesn’t ever intend on using it again. Whatever happened out there, he’s not keen on repeating it.

That night, laying restlessly in his narrow bed, he convinces himself that the man was some kind of hallucination brought on by too much stress, too little sleep, or both, and does his best to forget about the whole thing.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

***

As luck would have it, Ryan actually is drunk the next time he uses the shortcut.

It’s late, late enough that even the last rays of sunlight are long gone, although the moon hangs high and luminous in the sky and he can see nearly as well now as in the daytime.

He stumbles out of the pub with a grin, waving wildly behind him at the last few patrons still nursing their drinks, then slings his guitar across his back and begins the long walk home. For once, he doesn’t mind the length of his commute; his head is still on the stage, lost in the high of the last few hours. He’s never played his guitar for anyone besides his mom, and he hadn’t been sure if anyone would like his music, but it turns out that a little liquor goes a long way in both boosting confidence and enjoying his admittedly amateur playing.

The crowd had sung their way through his chosen set of Irish and American folk tunes, and to his surprise he’s been invited back a few weeks later. Plus, for a low earning grad student, the extra fifty euros in tips will go a long way.

Ryan meanders down the empty cobbles, absent-mindedly humming the last stanza of “The Parting Glass” as he beings the trek home. It’s almost the beginning of April, but there’s still a slight chill in the air, the last remnants of winter holding fast despite the hills steadily becoming greener.

Shoving his hands deeper into his pockets, he ambles past the university and toward the rest of the city. It is, he thinks, the kind of night he and his buddies back home would have gone looking for trouble. Bright enough to see without flashlights, but with enough of pockets of darkness to keep things interesting.

Ahead looms the trailhead, a gaping hole torn in the silent forest, and he hastens past it with a shiver.

About twenty paces later he stops, turns around and walks slowly back to the trail.

It’s a bad idea. He knows for sure that it’s a bad idea, but he also remembers the man in the woods and now he’s almost unbearably itchy with curiosity. Ryan lands on the thought (which, ok, he’s been both chewing on and trying to suppress for a few weeks now) that whoever was in the woods could have been something more than a hallucination.

He could have been a murderous vagrant, which admittedly would be uncool to run into, but he could also be someone a little more… supernatural.

Ryan isn’t an idiot. He knows the stories, has written papers on some of them and has read dozens more. He’s an anthropology student in Ireland, after all, so it isn’t like he could avoid hearing whispers about the Fair Folk hidden in the thick woods.

They’re legends, though, like Bigfoot or Mothman. Fun to read about, but ultimately nothing more than bedtime stories parents tell their children to stop them from misbehaving. _Go to sleep or the faeries will come snatch you up._ He heard a different version of the same thing dozens of times as a kid.

So yeah, no faeries. But ghosts? Ryan’s seen undeniable evidence of spirits, even experienced one or two in his day, and he’s willing to bet that whoever he saw in the woods was an apparition of some sort.

Eyeing the path, he tries to think reasonably. On one hand, there’s the ever-present chance of being murdered. On the other, he finds a ghost, or at the very least gets home twenty minutes earlier. But he’s too drunk to be anxious, and even on the best of days he doesn’t have the greatest impulse control, so a decision that on any other night would take an hour of consideration is made in about thirty seconds.

“Well,” Ryan says to no one in particular, “since I can’t talk myself out of it, I guess here goes nothing.”

He plunges headlong into the dark forest, slips on the wet moss at the trail entrance and nearly falls on his face, rights himself, and then barrels onward through the trees, giggling.

The woods are fuzzy, like he’s staring through leaded glass, but in spite of his impaired physical senses he feels like he’s making good time on the trail. Already he’s reached the bridge, and ahead is that large rock, and past the rock…

There are the hawthorns. Ryan pushes through them and skids to a stop, panting lightly. He’s sweating, despite the chill, and he pulls off his guitar and jacket.

Now that he’s here, he realizes that he has absolutely no idea how to actually hunt a ghost. He’s watched plenty of videos over the years, but all the professionals have full teams and fancy equipment.

 _And evidence,_ a voice in the back of his mind adds. Ryan ignores it.

“Hey, ghost?” he yells at the trees. “Um, spirit? Can we talk?”

Not even the wind rustles an answer, and Ryan absentmindedly scratches his head. “Yeah, didn’t think that would work. Uh, ok, I’ll try something else.”

“Look, I’m sorry if I’m scaring you, but you almost made me poop my pants last time I was here so I kinda feel like we’re even.” He listens for a moment, then continues. “Can you move something? Make a noise?”

“My name’s Ry – ah, shit!” His foot catches a root and he trips, landing heavily on his elbows. Careful not to hurt his guitar he rolls onto one side, giggling helplessly. “Ryan! My name is Ryan. Can you say Ryan?”

As his laughter dies down, Ryan pauses to consider the situation he’s gotten himself into.

He’s beginning, even through his drunken haze, to feel like an idiot yelling at air. Maybe the man really was just his own wild imagination trying to trick him in the half light. For a moment he considers giving up for the night, heading home to a hot shower and his bed, but ultimately his own curiosity wins out.

Curiosity or stubbornness. The jury is still out on that one.

“You can’t fool the old Bergmeister, that’s for sure,” he mutters. “I just want to talk!”

Ryan hauls himself off of the forest floor, stumbling to a tree that sits at the corner of the last bend in the trail. He arranges himself on its mossy roots, like he’s settling down to chat with an old friend. His jacket is covered in wet leaves, and he tries for a moment to brush it off before giving up and setting it next to him on his guitar.

“So what’s your story, Mr. Ghost?” he asks, leaning his head against the rough bark. “Maybe you were a farmer? Or a – a blacksmith, or a baker? Or, oh I know, this one is good – you were a fuckin’ lord or something.” He laughs quietly to himself.

“Yeah, that’s probably it, right? I bet you were the son of some rich important dude who fell in love with a pretty girl from the village and when you tried to run away together you were both murked.”

Ryan’s getting pretty involved with his own story at this point. “Maybe… oh shit, maybe it was a pretty boy from the village? That’d be fun, huh – gay Irish Romeo and Juliet.” He waggles his eyebrows. “How scandalous.”

“I guess you could have been someone who everyone hated and probably murdered because, I dunno, you stole their sheep or chickens or – or goats.” He pauses, considering, then rambles on. “Do people actually steal sheep? Is that a thing? Ok, well, either way I like the love story better.” Sighing, he closes his eyes against the brightness of the night sky and continues.

“The banter doesn’t really work alone, I’ll give ya that,” he says. “Back home the guys and I could keep it going for hours, but I don’t really have anyone like that here.”

Ryan sighs again, glancing up through the trees at the moon. The alcohol buzz is wearing off, and now he’s just sleepy and a little bummed out.

“I don’t have anyone here, yet, to be honest,” he says quietly. “I thought this would be a big adventure and that I’d find my – my calling, or my true self or whatever shit people say when they study abroad.

“I never had problems finding friends before now, did you know that?” The ghost remains frustratingly unresponsive. There aren’t even any normal nighttime noises like he remembers from California, and a wave of homesickness hits him like a freight train.

“I hate this,” he whispers, blinking back hot tears. “God – fuck, I want to go home.”

He can’t go home. Going home is giving up, and that would be worse, so much worse, than sticking out his three years here. Everyone would be disappointed, and imagining his parents faces when he tells them he can’t handle being so far away is worse than the crushing loneliness. 

So he’s stuck.

Stuck in Ireland, stuck on this stupid, silent spirit and stuck under this tree, stuck in a career path that he isn’t even sure he wants anymore. Just…stuck. He’s feeling sorry for himself and now he’s talking to a ghost that isn’t even bothering to respond.

Everything is awful, Ryan thinks, blinking miserably up through the trees. He doesn’t bother wiping the away the tears creeping down his cheeks.

The moon is very bright, and the woods are very quiet, and after a while Ryan feels his eyelids getting heavier in spite of himself. He’s finally winding down, and he’s so tired. He’s also just drunk enough to seriously consider falling asleep against the tree.

“Still sitting at the stupid table waiting for a ghost that’s never gonna show up,” he mumbles as his eyes close. “Awfully inconsiderate…”

A few minutes won’t hurt, he thinks. He’ll head home soon.

It’s not like there’s anyone waiting up for him.

The last thing his sleep-addled brain registers is the faint heat of a broad palm against his cheek, and then he’s out.

***

Ryan startles awake at dawn. He sits up abruptly, looks around, then lays back down again with his forearm over his eyes.

“What the actual fuck.”

He’s at the trailhead, neatly laid out in a particularly green patch of grass, his jacket spread over him. The cobbles are only a few meters in front of him, but his spot is tucked in behind a thornbush thicket and would be nearly invisible from the street.

“What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck,” he moans into his arm.

It isn’t the first time he’s woken up someplace… unexpected, after a night of drinking. That happens embarrassingly often, actually.

It is the first time that he distinctly remembers falling asleep somewhere and didn’t wake up in the same place.

He doesn’t know how he managed to move the 400 meters to the opening of the trail, or how his jacket got draped over him. He doesn’t remember getting up, he has no history of sleepwalking, and he knows for a fact that he wasn’t drunk enough to have moved himself and completely forgotten about it.

Ryan presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. Maybe if he doesn’t open them again, he can pretend that he went home the normal way last night, and that he’s lying in his lumpy bed back at the hostel. He can almost pretend everything is fine.

After another minute of quiet panicking, Ryan removes his hands and blinks the spots away. It’s still just barely dawn, and he’s unfortunately still in his patch of grass by the road. 

“I mean,” he says, and his voice sounds shrill to his ears, “what did I expect? To move another quarter mile down the road? No, of course not,” and yep, he sounds like he’s on the verge of a panic attack again, “because that would be completely impossible.”

Ryan pushes himself up onto his elbows, groaning at the popping of his joints. “I’ve cracked. I’ve finally lost my mind.” He manages to wrangle his aching body into a sitting position. “I honestly thought I had at least another ten years.”

His guitar sits innocently next to him in the grass.

“What happened last night?” he asks it, half expecting an answer. “How’d we get here, huh?”

The guitar, as expected, stays silent, and he turns back to the woods with a sigh. 

What did he do? It’s impossible, completely impossible that he’s here and not still against that old tree. Unless –

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

It’s not proof, no, but it’s sure as fuck the best evidence he’s ever gotten of the paranormal. It’s what he was looking for, what he needed, to justify doing a real investigation.

Ryan scrambles to his feet, ignoring his protesting legs (and noting a pleasant lack of a hangover), and jogs to the opening of the trail. Light is only beginning to trickle through to the forest floor, and he can barely make out the curve in the path. Squinting, he leans forward until he can make out his tree in the distance.

The man isn’t there this time, but it doesn’t matter anymore, now that he has real evidence.

He stares down the path. “I’ll be back!” he yells. “You can’t just throw me out every time! I have just as much of a right to be here as you do, and I’m gonna figure out who you are!”

He’ll be back, he thinks, grabbing his guitar and jacket on the way out to the road. He’ll be back, and this time he’ll be prepared.

Ryan squares his shoulders and steps onto the cobbles, leaving the forest behind. He has research to do, and he wouldn’t mind a cup of tea and scone or two.

There is someone – something – in those woods.

And Ryan is going to figure out who.


End file.
